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My remarks this year on health education have been
incorporated in Appendix 1, at the end of this Report.
It has been very rightly said that a
Medical Officer of Health must concern himself with
every known factor in his Area which may affect the
health of the community. For this reason, the Public
Health Department has been intimately connected with
campaigns to promote clean food, to control the spread
of infectious diseases, to remedy housing defects,
indeed all matters which come within the purview of
environmental hygiene. As will also be known, we
have associated oursel^swith the prevention of accidents
in the home, a very urgent and increasing problem,
with health education, a function which we share with
the Middlesex County Council, and have also keenly
watched the very rapid progress made in the field of
vaccination and immunisation. But there is one other
health hazard which has recently been given considerable
prominence, and in which the Public Health Department
must of necessity be interested. I refer to
radiation.
Radiation, in other words, the hazards
which can a rise from the use or disposal of radioactive
substances, has presented a problem not only
in this country but throughout the civilised world.
It has been said that the hazards associated with radioactive
substances are not nearly so great as those
associated either with accidents on the road or accidents
in the home. While this may well be true, there
is a vast difference between accidents which occur on
the road or in the home and accidents or even fatalities
due to radiation. We can all see the disastrous
results of careless driving, burns, scalds or falls in
the home; but radiation still remains a vast, complicated
and somehow terrifying subject which yet remains
beyond the understanding of many, even highly intelligible
people. When a child pulls a kettle of water
on himself and is scalded we can see the unhappy
result; when someone is knocked down by a car, the
result is again only too obvious. But the effect
of gamma or beta rays or even electrons on our body
may not be known for a very long period. We
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